News and notes from around the A2 Community

ELC 2015 gets underway today and A2 is there!

Asian Access is a silver sponsor of the Eagles Leadership Conference, held at Singapore's Suntec Convention Centre from July 23-25, 2015. The theme of ELC 2015 is The Art of Partnership: Collaboration – Creativity – Community. Our own Takeshi Takazawa is one of the speakers. Takeshi's workshop is entitled, Partnering Church and Corporations: Making Community Impact and he will share from his experiences in forging partnerships between church and marketplace. Listen to Takeshi's introduction...

Pastors throughout Japan are experiencing a new level of intimacy with their spouses. As The Marriage Course DVDs from Alpha International have recently been produced in Japanese, courses have been launched specifically for pastors with the hope that these leaders will then run the course at their own churches. One pastors' course was held at Kobe Union Church. Over 100 local pastors were invited but just four couples signed up—and just two of the four were pastors. But both had great need. One shared with me that he and his wife were looking for help and...

As Reverend Toshio Maehara retired from our board a few weeks ago, the one word that kept coming up in reflecting about his life and service was "Dignity". There were several other words expressed: focus, determined, passionate, and prayerful... perhaps a few I've missed. But, over and over again, the word "Dignity" arose. Toshio and Mutsuko, his wife, have led a life full of dignity. It's with honor that he is not only retiring from full time service to our board of directors, but also accepting a new position as Senior Advisor to Asian Access board chairman and president, specifically in regard to our 2020 Vision for Japan. Pastor Maehara's resolve for us to..

Nepal (MNN) -- Nepal won't be getting debt relief from the International Monetary Fund, after all. Why? The damage the country suffered from the April quake isn't quite severe enough. It puts an already poor country in a shaky situation as it tries to rebuild. Asian Access is helping the national church networks reach out to 13 quake-hit...

Dear Friends, The International Monetary Fund has decided not to provide debt relief to Nepal in the face of the catastrophic earthquake that hit the country. This is devastating news for the Nepalese people. Being a poor country, they shoulder an enormous debt load to the IMF. Now they have been struck by one of the most devastating disasters to hit a country in the last decade...

In one of the poorest countries in the world, where garment workers labor under harsh conditions, Asian Access is partnering with InterVarsity to build the Living Water Centre (LWC)—a multi-purpose training and conference facility in a country where land and buildings like this are scarce. Peter Mazumder, general secretary of InterVarsity Bangladesh, shares in a video interview his vision for a Centre that will lead people to living water. LWC will help the nearby garment workers through providing a medical clinic and chapel as well as serve the facility needs for a number of organizations who are partnering in this vision, including...

Nepal Short-Term Service Trips Now Available!

Purpose: The people of Nepal have been devastated physically, economically, emotionally and spiritually by the April and May 2015 earthquakes. You have an opportunity to provide basic assistance, encouragement, and most importantly, the love of Christ to the people of Nepal.

Timing: June – December 2015

Maximum group size: Eight persons

Trip length: Seven days/six nights in country (travel additional)

One day orientation

Five days at ministry site

One day visiting and sightseeing

Primary work: There is an acute need to clear the debris created by the earthquakes so that homes, schools and other buildings can be rebuilt. You will be working alongside the local residents in this effort...

Not long ago, I was serving with Asian Access in a predominantly Buddhist nation. It’s a nation where the Buddhist priests have been quite antagonistic to the Church, threatening believers and burning down church buildings. As I was serving, I was visiting an impoverished village where some of my colleagues had reached out...

It was the guy in the worship band—a guitarist playing with two broken legs—who finally got to me. When the 7.9 earthquake struck Nepal on April 26, over 300 men, women, and children were worshipping at Visions of Salvation church in central Kathmandu. The building collapsed. Nineteen people, including the pastor, were killed. Yesterday, my friends here (who shall remain nameless) and I were invited to share at the VOS service. They are renting a building near their now-destroyed sanctuary. It is unfinished—bare concrete floors, tin roof, no lights—but it is sturdy. The late pastor’s son and his wife now lead the...

Nepal (MNN) -- Landslides caused by heavy rains joined another strong aftershock in Nepal four days ago. The constant reminders of the national tragedy have left people in shock. We caught up to Noel Becchetti with Asian Access in Kathmandu. "There is this collective PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) that you can see everywhere. So, what...

Nepal (MNN) — Healing is slowly coming to the grief-stricken and quake-shaken country of Nepal. The April 25 and May 12 earthquakes, as well as hundreds of aftershocks, caused over 8,000 deaths and billions of dollars in damages. Many organizations such as Asian Access immediately jumped in to take action in rebuilding the...

Karl and June of Moody Radio-Chicago interviewed Joe Handley on the heels of his return from Nepal. Joe provided a status update on what's happening—both the challenges and the opportunities—how they're coping there, and how you can help.

Find out why Joe believes Nepal is the worst disaster he has ever seen...

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Stories about Asian Access published by Mission Network News, a mission news service dedicated to keeping Christians informed on evangelical mission activity around the world. In doing so we hope to educate and motivate Christians to prayer, participation, and support of missionary work to help further the Great Commission.

What A2 staff are blogging about these days

I started this when Mom was still here, which was more than a year ago. Wowzas. But re-reading my jotted notes made me chuckle. Japanese is vague. There’s so much reading between the lines that sometimes I second-guess my second-guessing (“sometimes”[…]

It’s been a while since I’ve written. I want to write a little more regularly as it’s almost like a discipline that helps me finish sentences (some of the time). I’m so scatter-brained with my mind jumping from one thing[…]

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I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ (Philemon 1:6). In our last newsletter (ahem, a few months ago…), we shared some[…]

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This week I have launched into reading and writing for another graduate course in member care. My last course was in January of 2014, and while I had intended to take the next offered class last summer, I decided that[…]

The last few days felt like pretty big swings in seeing some of the beauty of Japan as well as some of her brokenness. Lost: One snapshot is from my first Buddhist funeral. I’ve been to 3 other funerals, but[…]